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new york city, now in your backyard

ALL CITY ACRES

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Status:

Completed

ALL CITY ACRES will make print maps of potential spaces for community-driven projects available in the Bronx, Queens, Staten Island and Manhattan. We are building on the successful tactics of 596 Acres in Brooklyn.

the project

596 Acres has been connecting communities with vacant public land resources in Brooklyn since August 2011. In less than a year, three new projects have started on sites that we identified and 24 more communities have initiated their organizing efforts.

We know this works. With your support, we will be able to bring our tactics to the other four boroughs.

Starting with data recently made available as a result of City legislation, we hope to make accurate maps of vacant publicly owned properties in the other four boroughs. Once the data is ready, we will seek out graphic designers from each borough to customize a print map (22.75" x 30”) for each borough. We will print 1,000 maps of each and distribute them through the network of community-based organizations. Also through those organizations, we will host “Land Use Visioning Sessions” in those communities to discuss with members what they would like to see on public land in their neighborhoods and to provide a primer for organizing for control of the land as well as on contact and context for advocating with city agencies for permission to make community visions a reality.

In each borough, we will chose 25 sites to label so that local community members have the information they need to improve their own surroundings.

As we have demonstrated in Brooklyn, New Yorkers in their communities are looking for land to work on with their neighbors. Project goals range from growing food to educating youth to providing social space, and all push the boundaries of how well we can live, together.

We have received so many inquiries about data for other boroughs that the answer to that question is on our very short list of “Frequently Asked Questions” on our website. With your help, we can answer those inquiries with data!

the steps

Clean-up citywide data for accuracy and relevance for maps and directories

Design maps and directories for each of the boroughs

Print maps and directories for each of the boroughs

Organize training and meetings in each borough, distribute maps and directories to local community members

In each borough & in partnership with local organizations, we will chose 25 sites to label so that local community members have the information they need to improve their own surroundings.

Organize follow-up training meetings in each borough to facilitate hand-off of project to local community members

why we're doing it

Vacant public land is scattered all over the city -- concentrated in communities that lack services, green space and access to fresh food. Often that land is hiding in plain sight. We let communities know it is there, identify it on the ground, then shepherd groups through the process of getting access and getting their community projects started.

Thanks for supporting 596 Acres (and ALL CITY ACRES!)

Our fourth site just got official -- Patchen Community Square in Bed Stuy was just today approved for community control by NYC agencies!

462 Halsey Community Garden had a fabulous "Grand Opening" -- after six months of volunteer work, the garden is open daily to the public; the gate is open everyday from early morning to dusk.

Feedback Farms, A Small Green Patch, and the Textile Arts Center, projects that share a site in Gowanus, were featured along with us in a Sunday Metro Section story in the New York Times.

We're psyched to have been selected by the Institute for Urban Design to represent the U.S. at the Venice Architecture Biennale this fall. The U.S. presentation is on "Spontaneous Interventions" and the whole theme of the Biennale is "Common Ground." Seems very right to us!

We won the Best Green App award from the NYC BigApps 3.0 competition!

And some things we're looking forward to:

We're aiming to go ALL CITY by July. To that end, we have gotten support from the Awesome Foundation to do the work of getting our website ready & the Citizen's Committee of NYC to help pay for design, production and distribution of materials.

We're also exploring our potential role as a facilitator of relationships between private owners of vacant lots and the communities who live near those lots. We are starting with a single relationship: One Kin Farm in Bed Stuy which starts building next week and has the space to do so through the generosity of a private landowner who shares our vision of a network of decentralized community spaces operated by engaged citizens. We'd love to meet other friendly landowners.

“The 462 Halsey Community Garden would not be as far along as it is without the fund raising help of ioby. They were so helpful and accommodating, utilizing their fiscal sponsorship allowed us to save money on buying supplies!”